The Limited, Inc. History

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Company History:

The Limited, Inc. is one of the largest corporate collections of specialty apparel retailers in the United States. The company owns and operates more than 5,300 stores throughout the United States and the United Kingdom, including big guns such as the Limited, Express, Structure, and Victoria's Secret. The Limited, Inc.'s holdings are separated into three main operating divisions: Women's Brands is composed of The Limited Stores, Express, Lerner New York, Lane Bryant, and Henri Bendel; the wholly owned subsidiary Intimate Brands, Inc. is made up of Victoria's Secret, Cacique, and Bath & Body Works; and Emerging Brands includes stores aimed at men and children, such as Structure, Abercrombie & Fitch, Limited Too, and Galyan's Trading Company.

The Early Years

The Limited, Inc.'s beginnings can be traced to 1961, when Leslie Wexner dropped out of law school and went to work in a women's clothing store owned by his father in Columbus, Ohio. After a short time there, Wexner suggested to his father that business would improve if the store concentrated on sportswear, but his father, Harry Wexner, believed that a full product line was necessary to attract customers. Instead, he encouraged his son to try out the sportswear idea on his own, which Leslie Wexner soon did.

Two years later, in 1963, Wexner used a $5,000 loan from his aunt to open a 2,000-square-foot store in Columbus's Kingsdale shopping center. Wexner christened it The Limited, named after the limited line of merchandise it carried. Wexner's goal was to gross $100,000 the first year — a goal which was surpassed with sales of $162,000. This success soon prompted the opening of a second store.

By 1965, The Limited was so successful that Wexner's parents, Harry and Bella, closed their own store and joined him in running his new enterprise. Harry Wexner served as the company's chairman until his death in 1975. Bella remained on the board into the 1990s as corporate secretary, providing her son with advice on his business moves. One year after Wexner's parents closed up shop and joined him, The Limited opened its first corporate headquarters above its Eastland mall store in Columbus. The company's employee count had reached 100, and by 1968 The Limited's sales had surpassed the $1 million mark.

In 1969, with five stores in operation, Wexner issued The Limited's first public stock, traded over the counter. After going public, the company began to expand rapidly&mdashøo rapidly, in fact, causing earnings to collapse. Wexner responded by improving the efficiency of the company's manufacturing and distribution systems. In a brief period, what The Limited had done in order to survive became the company's distinctive strength.

Innovations and Growth Throughout the 1970s

After identifying The Limited's trouble spots, Wexner implemented a system of financial controls supported by electronic point-of-purchase terminals. These terminals allowed the company's Columbus headquarters to monitor inventory levels to see what was selling and where it was selling. This information helped the company aggressively mark down slow-selling items, which cleared shelf space for hot new items to be brought in. Although marking down slow-sellers was not necessarily a fresh idea, the speed at which The Limited's headquarters evaluated and authorized these markdowns was impressive. The computer lines that link The Limited's shops to corporate headquarters brought the company the flexibility and speed of a small privately run boutique.